The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been calling for Taiwan to adopt mail-in voting, a kind of absentee voting, to uphold the right to vote of voters who live overseas or are not living at the place of their household registration. This is meant to make it more convenient for voters to cast their ballots without needing to travel.
However, mail-in voting has many drawbacks that would be hard to overcome.
The first problem is uncertainty about the voting process. With mail-in voting, electors can register their intention to vote in advance, but how can the authorities be sure of the voter’s identity? This is especially true of people living overseas or somewhere other than the place of their household registration.
There are clear technical difficulties. How can one prevent the situation in which somebody fraudulently registers for mail-in voting under someone else’s name so that they can be sent a ballot and vote?
How can one be sure that someone is voting of their own free will?
Vote-buying still exists in Taiwan, and mail-in voting would help bribe-givers control how bribe-takers cast their votes, making it impossible to guarantee the accuracy of election results.
The second problem is uncertainties about the ballot-mailing process. It would be difficult to ensure that ballot papers are delivered. Unless ballots are sent by double-registered mail, there could easily be suspicions about ballots getting lost, as happened in the 2020 US presidential election. However, double registration would incur additional costs. Also, if a voter does not receive an advice of delivery, might they not suspect their ballot has been lost and demand to be sent another one? If double registration cannot be used, what would happen when a ballot is intercepted by someone else? It would create a situation in which that ballot does not count toward the election result. In that case, how can a fair election result be guaranteed?
Third, it would be hard to guarantee the secrecy of ballots when they are being counted. Taiwan’s current system of casting and counting ballots enables voters place their ballots directly in the ballot box, and after polls close, the ballots are openly inspected and counted on-site. If mail-in ballots are counted in the same open way, how can voters’ identity be guaranteed? Double registration would be needed to ensure that voters’ ballots are delivered to the correct destination. In that case, when opening and counting the votes, it would be possible to discover the voter’s identity. When an envelope is opened, it would be possible to know who that person voted for. This would make it impossible to guarantee voters’ right to privacy.
Furthermore, if only a handful of people in a particular electoral district register for mail-in voting, then when their votes are opened and counted, it would be easy to deduce who cast those votes. This would make it impossible to adhere to the rule that all voting must be done by secret ballot, as stipulated in Article 129 of the Constitution.
Although mail-in voting is intended to relieve some voters of the inconvenience of returning to their hometowns to vote, when compared with the existing method of vote-counting, which is quick, fair, just and open, the advantages of mail-in voting are clearly outweighed by its drawbacks. That being the case, Taiwan should not rush into adopting such a voting system.
Hsu Hui-feng is an academic in CTBC Business School’s Department of Business and Economic Law.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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